


protect this kid

by Catznetsov



Series: sweetest place [3]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Edmonton Oilers, M/M, Ontario Hockey League, Pining, Soulmates, Washington Capitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23507341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catznetsov/pseuds/Catznetsov
Summary: “They let you boys come up and watch or something?”Connor wiggles around onto his hands and knees and feels the invitation, crumpled in his pocket. “Actually,” he says. Too quiet. “Just me. I’m playing.”“Oh,” the first guy says. A pause.“Boys,” another voice says in tones of disappointment, deep enough to fill the awkward air without its owner shouting. “Are you bullying the babies already? That’s my job.”
Relationships: Connor McDavid/Tom Wilson
Series: sweetest place [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553392
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	protect this kid

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during the Canada/Russia Challenge in November of 2012. Each Canadian junior league puts together an All-Star team to play against the Russian juniors. McDavid was selected after only 15 games at the OHL level, when he was 15 and adorkable. There will be no sexy off-ice action for him until he's 18.

The invitation to the OHL All-Star team is the least important award he’s up for this season, but Connor keeps it anyway. Somebody else must have dropped out. It doesn’t say anything about his team play, literally the opposite, really, taking him away from JP and the rest of the guys he’s supposed to support just for two days of something new. And just next week—maybe they saw his goal that ended up on TSN over the weekend, but Cam says don’t be dumb Connor, of course they know who you are when you won’t stop sending them letters, and JP says he’ll survive a whole week without Connor without falling back to his old bottom six ways, and Coach doesn’t seem interested in his apology.

So Connor doesn’t know why he puts the folded letter on his nightstand that night, reaches out to touch it a couple times that week when he’s getting ready for bed.

He keeps the paper in his pocket for the whole bus ride, as if somebody’s going to stop him on the way into the unfamiliar arena and ask for proof of who he is. They don’t. Connor gets down to the locker room door before he stops himself to breathe, and then someone opens the door in his face. The weight of Connor’s hockey bag tips him over backwards and he lands on his butt and what feels like his gloves, looking up at a couple of the biggest boys he’s ever seen.

“Woah, watch it kid,” one of them says, too late.

“Oh hey, Connor,” another guy says, and Connor peeks up to see Danny Catenacci, who used to live a couple blocks over in Richmond Hill and played with York-Simcoe too. He must be nineteen now, but at least he’s not 185 cm. Connor is neither. “Long time huh? They let you boys come up and watch or something? That’s cool.”

Connor wiggles around onto his hands and knees and feels the paper, crumpled in his pocket. “Actually,” he says. Too quiet. “Just me. I’m playing.”

“Oh,” the first guy says. A pause. “That’s cool.”

“Boys,” another voice says in tones of disappointment, deep enough to fill the awkward air without its owner shouting. “Are you bullying the babies already? That’s my job.”A hand appears in front of his face and Connor takes it, barely bracing before he’s been hauled up onto his feet again.

Connor’s wrapped up in the arms of possibly the biggest boy there is, 190 or more. Connor could just lean in and hide his whole face in his chest, a mattress of heather gray and Whalers’ green. He looks up and thinks, with an odd doubled echo, _are your eyes gray, or blue?_

Connor has never felt the kind of pull people talk about. Some kids used to say maybe that meant you didn’t have a soulmate, but Connor thought more sensibly it meant he didn’t have far to go. There were plenty of people in Toronto, so that didn’t seem unlikely. It was just another way Connor seemed to be lucky that he wasn’t really responsible for, so he hadn’t thought much about it one way or the other. That, Connor decides, gazing up into his soulmate’s eyes, was definitely dumb.

“Hi?” his soulmate says. “I’m Tom.” His lips are so pink it looks like he’s just finished a cherry popsicle, which Connor woozily wants to say is his favorite flavor. He has a real beard already.

“Hi,” Connor says.

“Okay then,” Tom says. He puts him down.

“That’s Connor. We used to play together in bantam,” Danny says. Connor totally owes him for that save. Then in unexpected betrayal, Danny says, “He lied about his age to get in. He’s fifteen.”

Connor was going to work up to that.

“Oh boy,” Tom says under his breath. He doesn’t sound upset, but doesn’t sound exactly jazzed about Connor’s existence either, which ordinarily is the happy medium Connor tries to set, but isn’t what you hope for from your soulmate. Connor looks up at him, and his mouth twists, maybe apology. “You’re with the Otters now, right?”

For a grand total of fifteen games so far, but that’s a gracious way not to point out that Connor’s never been with anyone else.

“Boys,” what must be Coach’s voice booms. “If you might get your butts back in here and play some hockey?”

They all look at each other, equals in the face of a real grownup, and scuffle inside. Tom sits down at a stall, hard. There’s an open spot next to him so Connor darts for it, stuffing his bag under and perching on the bench to stake his claim before anyone else can. Tom sends a sideways look at him, so Connor smiles. Tom’s eyebrows pull together, and he looks like he might say something. He has cute short eyebrows, like a big friendly dog. Talking to an older boy big enough not to care what Coach says is a total thrill, but Connor has a lot to prove, and if he wants to be good he has to know the game plan and listen. He faces front, and feels Tom follow.

They don’t get matched together. Connor would point out to Coach that’s probably a mistake, if they’ll have a window into each other’s heads, but that would be rude before they’ve talked. Tom’s legs are like 20cm longer than Connor’s, too, so he takes off to skate with two of the oldest boys. Connor can watch across the ice as they rush end to end, those legs eating up the distance.

Connor doesn’t get any points either, but the Russians are as stunning as they always looked on TV, swirling around them and away again too fast to catch. It’s a different sort of quickness than the speed the older Ontario boys can get up to on the straightaways, and Connor gives himself the weekend to mostly just stare. That’s what he wants someday, he thinks, looking at all of it.

It takes him a minute to wake up and realize one of the boys on the other bench is laughing, probably at him. Another of them brings his hands to his face, pretending to be a baby. It’s kind of funny. No one on the Ontario bench really says anything, if they notice, but next shift Tom rolls over the boards and makes straight for the other end, upending the guy without any fuss.

The Russians move on to Montreal to play the boys from the Q, and Coach supplies them all with pizza before releasing them back into suburban Ontario. Connor’s folding the still nearly new jersey up to go into his bag and then on his wall at home when he feels a polite knock against his mind and then Tom stops and clears his throat behind him. Connor spins, but tries to look smooth about it.

“Hey,” Tom says. He runs a hand through his hair, which is still shiny even after being crushed under a helmet all day. “Do you have time to go get coffee or something?”

“Yeah. Totally,” Connor says, hugging the jersey to him. “That would be nice.”

Tom looks at him like he’s never met anyone like Connor before, not necessarily in a nice way. But he turns around again so Connor can change into a gray t-shirt and then guides him out of the rink and down the road to some place that makes Tom a coffee and Connor a steamer with strawberry syrup. Tom retreats to one of the window booths and eyes Connor’s drink.

“So, we should probably talk,” he says, and then doesn’t.

Connor wraps his hands around his cup for the warmth and something to do. He can’t have caffeine, and Tom probably shouldn’t either, but Connor guesses he’s stressed.

“This is pretty weird,” Connor says. He means it just to get things going, just about the way they’re stuttering to start, which no one told him to expect, but Tom’s tight posture melts and the sensation of his mind brushing up against Connor’s personal space softens, as if in relief at hearing Connor acknowledge a tension he’s apparently feeling and Connor hasn’t been. His face lights up with a grateful smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, a bit.”

“Is this about me, or you were expecting someone else, or just like…” Connor starts. He makes a useless little hand gesture, and then takes a big swig of steamed milk. “The fifteen thing.”

“It’s definitely a lot about the fifteen thing, dude, yeah,” Tom says. He looks at Connor incredulously again, takes a sip of coffee, and looks back, almost laughing. “Did you really try to lie about your age?”

“No. It worked. And I was four and we said I was six,” Connor says. “I didn’t even know what numbers meant.” That gets Tom to laugh for real, surprisingly high and sweet, ducking his head as if to hide it against his sleeve.

“Look,” he says. “You have a cell yet? Or…whatever, I’ll give you my number. We can talk this summer, okay?”

“Okay,” Connor says. He scratches it down on a paper napkin, keeps that folded in his fist for the whole bus ride after they finish their drinks, the strawberry taste in his mouth and shy sensation of someone else at the back of his mind the whole way home. He’s old enough now to know what a number means.


End file.
